In certain communication systems, such as in a code division multiple access (CDMA) cellular system as defined by interim specification (IS) IS-95, and other most recently defined communication systems such as Wide CDMA (WCDMA) and CDMA2000, or other systems commonly referred to as 3G systems, a receiver in the communication system determines an estimated encoding rate for each received frame. In such systems, the rate determination accuracy affects speech quality since any rate determination error typically causes annoying artifacts in the decoded speech signal. In addition, since rate determination is performed on a real-time basis, it is important that the rate determination process is performed in an efficient and cost effective manner. One or more such efficient method and apparatus are disclosed in the U.S. issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,098, Wang et al, issued on Mar. 2, 1999, having one common inventor with the present invention, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, which is incorporated by reference herein. Nevertheless, rate determination in a communication system often times is so crucial in proper operation of the system that an improved method and apparatus are always desired.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved apparatus and method for performing rate determination in a communication system.